Manufacturer: Altec Lansing
Price: $149.95 USD MSRP (but can be found online for significantly less)

Altec Lansing is a company with a long history of producing some of the finest and most popular movie theatre speaker systems and studio monitors used from the 1920s until late in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1973, Billboard magazine claimed that more Altec monitor loudspeakers were being used in recording studios than all other products combined; that was 32 years ago though. For those who may be interested in the company history, there is an informative website called audioheratige.org that contains everything you may ever wish to know about James B. Lansing. There is also a timeline on the Altec Lansing website, which you can access here. Though still producing some of their well-regarded legacy products, Altec Lansing has largely re-branded itself and become a very popular producer of personal and computer audio systems. With an ear to their fine audio heritage, I will be evaluating the new GT5051 surround speaker system by auditioning CD audio, DVD surround playback, and of course, the latest in positional audio gaming. I will be evaluating these unique, stacked, side-firing speakers in an office situation as well as auditioning them in a more traditional home theatre setup.